Lorne and his team were already gathered in the jumper bay when Rodney, Teyla and Ronon arrived to join them for their flight. The military team looked cool and collected as they waited, the exact opposite of how McKay felt, though he tried his best not to show his nerves. Attempting to muster up some Sheppard-style nonchalance, he approached the bulky marines with his best, most casual swagger.
'So, how're we gonna play this, Major?' he asked, trying to sound as relaxed about the mission as they appeared to be.
Lorne blinked at him, then said, 'Oh, I don't know, Doc. I thought we should maybe just fly through to the planet and run a few scans to see if we can locate Colonel Sheppard's transmitter...unless you have a better idea?'
'And if we find it we can perform some kind of surgical strike, in an out, quick and neat,' the scientist continued, thrusting his hand in and out like some kind of lethal weapon, feeling like he was on a roll with the military jargon.
The major smiled at him, seemingly impressed with his knowledge of such things. 'Yeah, exactly like that,' he replied, nodding. 'You know, you sound like you know a lot about this stuff; perhaps we should let you lead the mission.'
'No...no,' McKay insisted, giving him a crooked smile. 'Although I've picked up a thing or two from Sheppard in my time working with him, I'm willing to defer to your greater experience.'
'Thanks, Doc. That's real big of you,' Lorne replied, deadpan, while his men battled not to laugh.
Noticing their struggle to contain themselves, Rodney realised Lorne had been stringing him along, much the same way Sheppard would have. 'Ah, that'd be that thing you military types describe as humour,' he sniped, realising Lorne wasn't impressed at all. 'Oh, my sides...they ache.'
'Perhaps we should board the jumper and get this mission underway,' Teyla suggested, stepping in before Rodney's sarcasm really kicked off.
He knew she was deliberately intervening, but he let her do it, knowing his temper was sometimes his undoing. Lorne making fun of him didn't matter, he told himself; all that mattered now was finding Sheppard.
Lorne agreed, gesturing for Sheppard's team to board the jumper first, then he and his team followed them up the ramp and he took his place in the pilot's seat.
As the rear hatch lifted into position, he looked back over his shoulder at them. 'Everyone ready?'
'Yes...yes. Just get this thing moving,' Rodney snapped, firing up his tablet ready to run the scanning programme to pick up Sheppard's sub-dermal transmitter.
Lorne set the jumper in motion, lowering it down into the 'gate room. As they waited for the wormhole to connect to Atrasca, Elizabeth's voice broke through on their radio.
'Good luck, people. Find out what you can, bring the colonel back if possible, but try not to get into any trouble. Remember what Ladon said. These people are aggressive and have displayed an overt interest in Ancient technology – that makes your craft alone a potential target for them. Be safe.'
'Will do, Elizabeth,' Rodney called back to her. 'We'll keep you posted.'
'Good. I'll let you know if we hear anything of use here,' she assured him. 'Major, you have a go.'
Rodney hoped this lead would prove to be the only one they needed. He'd felt guilty enough about not going with Sheppard to Medulsa in the first place; they needed to find him soon and in one piece if he ever wanted to sleep again.
The 'gate flashed into life, and Lorne launched them through it, cloaking the craft as soon as they were clear of the event horizon on the other side. The terrain looked much like any other life-sustaining planet in the Pegasus galaxy; lots of greenery, lakes of various sizes, mountains, the occasional beautiful coastline. It was hard to tell what time of day it was, but as they travelled the sun appeared to be descending rather than ascending so they assumed it was early to mid afternoon. Rodney was admiring the wonders of the landscape when the major's voice broke her serenity.
'Are you picking up Sheppard's signal?' he asked.
'Nothing. If he's on this planet he's...' he stopped before voicing that thought out loud.
'Do not think that way,' Teyla told him. 'Perhaps something happened to disrupt his signal. You have said certain weather conditions and geological features can cause that effect before.'
'Yeah, but I'm not picking any of that stuff up here,' he whined, feeling a tension headache begin to nag behind his eyes. Why was rescuing Sheppard never straightforward? The man had a knack for getting himself into tight situations that had them all sweating bullets until his return. It seemed this occasion would be no different.
Lorne manoeuvred them down low over a lake, then banked left and headed in a direction they hadn't covered yet, handling the jumper with an ease and confidence almost equal to that of the colonel himself.
'What the hell...' Lorne's voice trailed off as he read the information the jumper's HUD was feeding to him, causing the others to move forward from the rear of the jumper to examine it. 'D'you see that, McKay?'
'Whoa, the power readings here are off the scale,' Rodney gasped, confirming them by analysing a second set via his tablet. 'These levels suggest massive amounts of active technology.'
'But I am not seeing anything to suggest technological advancements,' Teyla said, squinting as she scoured the various small camps and villages they passed over. 'They seem to live much as my people do; farmers, hunters and traders.'
'Well, I can't see anything either,' Rodney agreed, 'but these readings are telling me there's something going on down there – something much bigger than a few cooking fires and bread ovens, I can tell you.'
'D'you think I should open a channel and see if we can make contact with anyone?' Lorne asked the scientist. 'Might draw them out.'
'Or it might alert an aggressive and technologically advanced race to the fact we're onto them,' McKay pointed out. 'Do we really want that before we've even had a chance to question these people on the surface about Sheppard's whereabouts?'
'Dr McKay is right,' Teyla agreed. 'I believe our best hope is to land the craft and see what we can find out from the villagers. If we are friendly and open in our approach, they may feel more inclined to be honest with us.'
Rodney held up a finger in realisation. 'Of course, much as it pains me to question my own judgement, that didn't exactly work with the Genii when we first approached them.'
Teyla arched an eyebrow, then dipped her head in acknowledgement of the point he made. 'That is true, but the Genii were a frightened and greedy people; hopefully these Atrascans will prove less deceitful.'
'No offence, Teyla, but don't you think you're being a bit optimistic there? We already know they're hiding something, and even Ladon said they're ruthless traders. I'm not holding out any hopes here.'
'They are the strongest link we have to Colonel Sheppard's whereabouts right now,' Teyla said firmly. 'For that reason, I am willing to hope.'
Lorne had turned to face them, and nodded now to give Teyla his support. 'It's good enough for me. I'll set us down and we'll go ask the locals a few questions.'
With a picture of Sheppard emblazoned across his computer tablet, Rodney stood back and acted as an easel while Teyla and Lorne did most of the talking. Though he fully appreciated they were much better at conversing patiently with the locals than he was, he couldn't help but feel a man of his brilliance could be put to better use than this. He and Ronon were just hanging around, ordered not to speak unless asked to for fear they might cause trepidation or offence. It occurred to Rodney these people could do with a good dose of fear to put some life into them; he'd never met such a dreary bunch in his life, and he'd worked with more geeky scientists than he cared to think about.
The villagers were a wholly unexciting bunch, all wearing their hair held back in a length of leather binding, and having only the most basic of clothing with not a single item of jewellery or finery between them. They kind of reminded him of the Amish – perhaps whatever god they worshipped considered such things a vanity, too. No one they spoke to showed even the slightest flicker of recognition when shown the picture he carried, and gradually, as time passed, McKay became more and more agitated and less and less amenable.
'I think it's safe to assume we aren't going to find anyone here willing to admit they've seen the colonel,' he growled, scowling at the locals gathered around them. 'We're wasting valuable time.'
'Are there any more settlements, perhaps more advanced than this, to which our friend may have headed?' Teyla asked in desperation.
'We are a simple people. All we have is what you see here,' one female insisted, gesturing with a sweep of her hand. She was young and heavily pregnant, and her words seemed honest enough, yet Rodney could not shake the feeling there was deception masked behind her words, and that what she said might simply be a well-practiced lie she could now deliver without a hint of conscience.
'Thank you all for your time,' Teyla said with a rigid smile. Then she turned and looked at the men there with her, flicking her eyes toward the pathway out of the town.
Once they were out of earshot, Ronon asked, 'So, what now? We can't just head back to Atlantis. We know there's somethin' going on here.'
'Dr McKay, do you think you would be able to pinpoint their centre of operations if we gathered enough data from those power readings?' Lorne asked.
Rodney nodded frenetically, at last feeling useful. 'I'm pretty sure I could narrow it down to a few kilometres at most, maybe less given enough time.'
'That's better than nothing,' Lorne said, checking over his shoulder to ensure no one was following them. 'I'm betting if Sheppard's anywhere on this planet, he's wherever that power source is. Let's head back to the jumper and see what we can find. Then, once we've identified a possible point of ingress, we'll head back to Atlantis and return with reinforcements.'
'Now that sounds like a plan,' Ronon rumbled, starting out at a pace the others had difficulty keeping up with.
Once on board, Lorne fired up the engines and launched them back into the air.
Rodney began work immediately, isolating the most powerful readings as the likely base of Atrascan military operations. 'Okay, I'm getting the strongest readings about two kilometres northeast of our position,' Rodney announced.
'Then that seems a good place to start,' the major said, setting a course.
Taking the craft in as low as he dared, they scanned the terrain for signs of any kind of entrance to an underground facility. Nothing jumped out at them, but then, the Genii had successfully concealed their underground facilities from trading parties for many decades, so he doubted it would be glaringly obvious.
'We should let Dr Weir know what we have found,' Teyla urged the major. 'I am certain she will be keen to hear from us.'
Lorne nodded, 'Will do.'
'Uh...guys,' McKay interrupted before the major could act. 'I'm detecting a massive build up in power...' Before he had the chance to finish his sentence their craft jerked violently, almost shaking them from their seats.
The jumper began to plummet, and Lorne only had just enough time to warn everyone to brace for impact before they hit the ground and everything went black...
oooOOOooo
Sleep did eventually come to Sheppard, but it was fractured at best. The night air out there in the open was now so cold he shivered uncontrollably as his body tried to generate more heat, his thin T-shirt offering little protection from the cool air. Despite the bitter temperatures, he managed brief snatches of rest, which did little to ease his aching head or to shorten the cold, dark night time hours.
Even though his slumbers were already stilted, it still came as something of a shock when he was woken by the sensation of someone landing on top of him in the darkness. As he opened his eyes, a flash of metal rushed past his face then hit the ground with a resounding thump.
Winded by the collision, it took him a moment or two to work out exactly what was happening, then, when the body pressing him into the ground powered up a lamp, he saw, with a cold rush of horror, exactly what the blade had pierced as it struck the ground. An Iratus bug squirmed and thrashed and hissed as it desperately tried to free itself to feed and preserve what was left of its life.
With a strangled squawk, Sheppard wriggled his way free of the person lying on top of him, forgetting his ankles were still tethered and tripping as he set off the alarms in the security post he was chained to.
The woman he'd thrown off him pulled her gun from her holster and levelled it at him, eyes wide and mouth twitching with a mixture of excitement and nervousness. 'Easy, Lieutenant Colonel. That could have been very nasty for you. I've seen one of those things kill a man before and it's not pretty.'
'Yeah, trust me, I know what they can do,' he told her, trying to catch his breath as he dusted himself down. The thing was still moving, scrabbling at the ground around it in an attempt to gain purchase and drag itself free of the knife in its back.
He heard heavy-booted feet thundering across the sandy ground behind him and turned to see Sarayah and two of her troops approaching at speed, weapons drawn.
'What is it, Teelac? What happened? Did he try to escape?'
'I was patrolling and spotted that,' she said, shining her light on the now failing insect. 'Good thing, too, or we would be down one prisoner right now.'
'I thought we had set up a perimeter to stop those things getting through,' Sarayah said, grimacing at the sight of it.
'We did. But every now and again one manages to get through. It's just a matter of timing. We go out; they come in.'
Sheppard watched as the hideous thing thrashed about in another frantic attempt to work itself free of the blade. That had been way too close for his liking, since he had no desire to repeat the experience he'd suffered when trapped in the 'gate in the back of a puddle jumper over two years ago. But where there was one Iratus bug, there would be many, many more. A vague recollection of the cave where he'd collected the eggs during his conversion into a bug popped into his head. There had been hundreds, possibly thousands of the things, skittering across one another, some crunching and liquefying under his feet as he'd walked through them. So somewhere out there was a dark, damp cave with a nest of the damned things just waiting to suck the life out of him. Just when he'd thought things couldn't get any worse.
Sarayah gestured for the two men at her shoulder to head back to the cave, then turned her piercing gaze on Teelac. 'You must have been patrolling very close to the prisoner to see that in the darkness,' she charged, clearly far from happy with that idea.
Sheppard now recognised the younger woman's voice. She'd travelled there with him in the truck on his arrival. It was hard to make out her features clearly in the poor light, but he could see she was kind of plain, almost boyish in appearance compared to her taller and more feminine colleague.
'Good thing I was, Commander' she pointed out, unflinchingly holding Sarayah's gaze. 'If I hadn't been, we would have lost our advantage.'
'Advantage? What advantage?' Sheppard asked.
Sarayah rolled her eyes. 'Teelac, perhaps you would like to share all our plans with the prisoner? He doesn't seem fully informed yet.'
Teelac dropped her head, shamefaced. 'Sorry, Commander. I wasn't thinking.'
'No, it seems your confrontation with that insect has left you somewhat distracted. Or perhaps something else was affecting your concentration.'
She slid a look in Sheppard's direction, than back to Teelac, her insinuation as clear as she could make it without actually stating it.
'My mind was only on the task of protecting the prisoner, Commander,' Teelac assured her.
Jealousy – was that what was driving this confrontation? Picking up on the icy vibe between the two of them, Sheppard decided to play on it to see how deep it ran. 'That wasn't exactly how it felt when you landed on top of me,' he muttered, deliberately not looking at Sarayah for her reaction. To be honest, he didn't need to see her face to feel the venom now seething out of her. 'You weren't too quick getting off me, either, as I recall.'
'I think, perhaps, it might be better if you don't take up the night patrol anymore, Teelac. I will reorganise things tomorrow. Now head back inside; I will watch him until sunrise.'
His plan having backfired, Sheppard sat back down on the floor and wrapped his arms around himself, shivering in the wind as the younger woman stalked away, head low in disgrace. 'Don't suppose you could ask her to bring out my jacket?' he grumbled, teeth clenched against the chill.
Sarayah bent down and grasped his chin, staring into his rebellious eyes as her fingers dug into him. 'Teelac may be young and impressionable, Sheppard, but she is loyal to her people's cause, and to me. You will not be able to use her against me, so don't even try.' He held her gaze, determined not to show fear, but the exchange grew more intense than he'd intended it to, her grip tightening as his defiance ignited her ire. Eventually she released the pressure on him, but rather than moving away she stroked the back of her fingers down his cheek in a manner far too intimate for him to deal with. He flinched away from her touch, and she seemed to check herself. 'I see you need to shave. We'll allow you to clean up in the morning. There's no need to be uncivilised about this, is there?'
Walking over to the skewered insect still writhing a few feet away, she stamped on its head and pulled out the knife which had been too close to Sheppard to leave there. Its legs still twitched, but it was in no fit state to move anymore – at least he certainly hoped it wasn't.
Leaving Teelac's lamp nearby but beyond his reach, she walked away then and sat down somewhere near the opening of the cave, little more than fifty yards away, remaining just visible in the slight light emanating from within it. Her head was turned in his direction, but her eyes were cast in shadow, so he could only guess if she was watching him, but it certainly felt that way.
Not wishing to antagonise her any further, he lay down and turned his back to her, watching the Iratus as it flickered its last. There had been no mistaking the intention behind that touch whether he needed a shave or not; she might be trying to convince him her previous interest in him had dissipated, but he wasn't falling for it. He suspected the people she now worked with needed him for some reason, hence Teelac calling him an advantage, and that was why she was holding back for now. But, Sarayah being Sarayah, he doubted this respite from humiliation would last for long.
He didn't sleep again that night.
